Flowers are a staple at UK supermarkets and even at the tiny local branches, you’ll usually find a range of bunches to choose from. Unlike with most basic items, though, it can be hard to weigh up where to buy yours from. It’s not just about price or initial appearance but also – and largely – how they fare when you take them home.
How long do they really last? How do they smell? With these questions and the looming presence of Valentine’s Day in mind, I decided to put four supermarkets’ flowers to the test to see who had the best of the bunch. My metrics would be varied: the range on offer, price point, appearance, scent and longevity. Also, in the spirit of the impending holiday, I decided to go with roses, ideally red - here’s how Lidl, M&S, Sainsbury’s and ASDA fared:
Lidl
Lidl was the first store I hit up for flowers and I was pleased to see a fairly sizeable selection, since this isn’t the case is other Lidls I’ve been to. There wasn’t a huge amount of range – the entire display was almost exclusively tulips and roses. However, there were lots of colour options, particularly with the roses.
Everything also looked super vibrant and fresh. (But then, Lidl has won the Retail Industry Award for Fresh Flower of the Year four times, so I shouldn’t have been surprised.)
I picked up a red bunch of roses for £2.29 and went on my merry way. Back at home, I was even more impressed by their leafiness and how bright the colours were. They almost looked like they’d been animated. Another thing I appreciated was that they came with a sachet of flower food to keep them perkier for longer.
The extra thorny stalks, though, I was less a fan of. It made cutting and de-leafing their bottoms significantly more difficult. They also had little to no scent, which was a minor but not insurmountable shame.
The buds were also without a doubt smaller than the other supermarket flowers. However, Lidl made up for the size with quantity, at least – 10 compared to the more standard eight that’s usually in a smaller bunch.
As for how they performed over time, they stayed largely same cheerful red for the seven days I monitored them. From the day four, though, several did show signs of darker discolouration around the edges and gradually worsened over the rest of the week.
As this wasn’t too serious until the fifth day and beyond, though, I’d be hesitant to say Lidl didn’t deliver on its 5-day freshness guarantee. However, it’s worth knowing that you can return your receipt to Lidl for a full refund if you think your flowers didn’t last as long as their stated vase life guarantee.
Price: £2.29
Rating: 3.5/5
ASDA
ASDA had a massive flower selection including two red rose options at £2 and £4. I went with the small bunch for £2. I wasn’t overly sold on the colour or shape – more of a maroon or burgundy than the bright red of my personal preference and oddly raggedy, ruffled petal edges – but I did appreciate the price. This was the cheapest supermarket bunch of the lot.
Back home, I counted eight flowers. A sniff test, meanwhile, revealed a faint smell. I couldn’t put my finger on it but it wasn’t the usual rose scent. While preparing them for their vase I noted that ASDA’s care instructions left a lot to the imagination. It was mostly safety warnings, not actual advice.
However, after all this initial bad mental press, ASDA ended up seriously surprising me. Due to a shortage of suitable pots, I’d had to house them in the same pot as the M&S flowers, since these were the two smallest. This allowed a very convenient window into their comparative progress. And what I saw was good news for ASDA.
While she started out looking inferior to my M&S roses, as they testing process went on, she transformed from an ugly stepsister into Cinderella – and I loved the glow up for her. Seriously,
Admittedly, beyond day five some scabbiness had begun to show around the edges of some petals, but this wasn’t too noticeable thanks to the darker colour. It was also beyond the amount promised, so I had no real qualms.
Price: £2
Rating: 4.5/5
M&S
I love M&S flowers. M&S has brilliant flowers. Even in smaller stores there’s a decent range to choose from, you can often find unusual colourways or types of plants and typically, they do a decent job of lasting for a week with some minor attendance. Given all this, I was not only feeling confident that the M&S roses would win, but also rooting for them to do so - but they let me down.
My local M&S had an array of colours including whites, pinks, yellows and oranges but no reds. This wasn’t the problem, though. I reasoned that it was still a little early for the Valentine’s Day stock to be out in full swing and left with a gorgeous £3 bunch of red-orangey-yellowy roses that looked like a sunset in flower form.
When home, I was glad to find a total of eight roses plus another flower food sachet and easy-to-follow care instructions. They also had a subtle but pleasant fresh scent if you leant in to smell them. Inspecting them again, I was mildly alarmed that one of the buds seemed a little shrivelled already, but felt assured by past experiences that they would pull through - so far, so happy. By Sunday evening (day three) they had done the opposite.
They looked to be nearing death. Things escalated quickly and by Monday evening (day four) all of the petals had crisped up and all but one rose had sad, drooping heads. Touching both the heads and stalks confirmed the entire bunch was very, very dry.
The unexpected turn of events also confused me given they were in the same pot of water as the ASDA roses, which were thoroughly thriving. Where the ASDA flowers somehow sucking the life out of the M&S ones? I wondered, but ruled it out.
So, while I loved the unique colours and slight scent of the M&S flowers most at first, I have to knock off several points for not meeting the five-day freshness guarantee promised on their label. A rather serious crime.
Price: £3
Rating: 2/5
Sainsbury’s
The Sainsbury’s I went into had a disappointing selection of flowers, but they did at least have red roses. This was, however, limited to a bunch of 14 for £5. Interestingly, these had a seven rather than five day guarantee for freshness.
Similarly to the Lidl ones, the Sainsbury’s red roses had a Disney-cartoonish brightness to them. In fact, these ones looked like they might actually be straight out of Beauty and the Beast thanks to their consistency in quality and colour.
I was also delighted to finally have clear instructions on how exactly to cut my flowers. Instructions I’ve seen in the past simply suggest cutting around 2cm from the bottom, but Sainsbury’s specified doing so diagonally and this made everything go much smoother. (If you take nothing else from this review, take that hack.)
Now, as these had a longer life, I expected them to be able to last the full seven days of testing. And that they pretty much did. Aside from very minor darkening on a few petals that appeared on the seventh day, these stayed superbly fresh and I suspect will continue to do so for at least a few more days.
Price: £5
Rating: 5/5
The verdict
Most of us buy flowers to cheer ourselves, our homes or others up, so the last thing you want is for them to sour the mood by perishing too quickly. Luckily, this wasn’t the case with most of the flowers, with Lidl and ASDA only experiencing significant discolouration at the very end or after their five-day freshness guarantees.
The Sainsbury’s roses, meanwhile, stayed nearly as immaculate as Disney’s enchanted rose for the seven days it promised, and likely will beyond this. These would be my top pick, especially for flowers that are a gift for someone else – but ASDA was close behind will a bunch that surprised me.
The flowers that shocked me the most were the M&S ones, which had practically died within 72 hours of acquiring them, failing their five day promise. It’s with personal sadness that I declare that, as the flowers were seriously pretty – but alas, not fated to last in my life for long.
At least I know two supermarkets to replacement ones from, though.
Is there a story you think we should be covering? If so, please email whatson@mylondon.news or at tilly.alexander@reachplc.com
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